“We know when people are coming to the hospital they are not at their best but the most important thing we can do is just be kind. Looking at what I get to do for people each and every day and how I get to impact their lives in a positive way makes it all worth it,” said Nurse Recker. When you love what you do and get to see the positive impact you have on people, it’s hard to be negative. “I am fortunate enough to work at a job I love and am passionate about. Nurse Recker says that while sometimes there are situations where there isn’t a good solution and there’s no way to predict the future, she feels good knowing that there are people who have her back. “To express our sincerest gratitude, we’re honored-to provide a platform for these incredible stories to be told, inspiring both the nursing community and beyond.” The difference has implications for understanding both the phenomenology of sexual orientation-what it's like to be straight, gay or lesbian-and the process by which people learn about their orientation, says Bailey.“Nurses share in some of the most joyful moments of a patient’s life but are also witness to some of the toughest moments, which can be a taxing part of their jobs that often goes unrecognized,” said Jaclyn Marrone, vice president of marketing for CeraVe.
"The main message is that there is a very fundamental sex difference between sexual arousal patterns in men and women," says Bailey. Whether the films depicted two males, two females, or a male and a female engaging in sexual activity, the different groups of women in the study responded similarly. They found that women, unlike men, showed the same genital responses to different kinds of erotic stimuli regardless of their sexual orientation, says Bailey. In their study, Chivers and Bailey showed erotic films to heterosexual, bisexual and lesbian women while measuring their genital and subjective arousal. If so, it means there are fundamental sex differences in the relationship between arousal and orientation. Now, however, new evidence has emerged to suggest that "category specificity," as Bailey calls it-the tendency for gay men to become aroused only to same-sex images and heterosexual men to become aroused only to opposite-sex images-is not true of women.
The effect is so robust, he notes, that it can be used forensically to detect men's sexual orientation, and it probably plays a significant role in shaping men's self-identification as gay or heterosexual.īut similar research on women has not been conducted until very recently. That research, says Bailey, showed that heterosexual and gay men could be distinguished on the basis of their erectile response to pictures of nude men and women. The purpose of the study, says Bailey, was to explore a basic question about the relationship between sexual arousal and sexual orientation that has its roots in studies conducted in the 1960s. Conservative radio and television shows picked up the story, but because the study was under review, he couldn't explain why it wasn't the boondoggle it had been made out to be. "It always provokes mixed reactions," he says.īut when an article titled "Federally funded study measures porn arousal" appeared in The Washington Times last December and described in unflattering terms a study conducted with his graduate student Meredith Chivers, he was unusually frustrated, he says. Michael Bailey, PhD, says he is used to getting attention, both positive and negative, for his research on sexual orientation.